Friday, August 29, 2008

Barack Obama made it across the tightrope of the Democratic National Convention, gaining solid endorsements from Bill and Hillary Clinton and giving a rousing speech before some 80,000 supporters at Invesco Field in Denver. But now comes the time when the Republicans win elections.

Over the past four decades, Republicans have dominated the outcomes of presidential races by mixing negative campaigning in public with illicit dirty tricks behind the scenes, as I've recounted in my last two books, Secrecy & Privilege and Neck Deep.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

In her clarion-call to the Democratic convention, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton reminded ALL of her supporters, “You haven't worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership."

She also said to her supporters, "No way. No how. No McCain." So, listen to her.

The U.S. missile defense program, which contributed to the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations that helped generate the Russian-Georgian conflict, has benefited from that conflict and may cause a further downward spiral in the relationship between these two great powers.

Along with the recognition of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia and repeated rounds of an expanding NATO — a Cold War alliance the Russians perceive as hostile — to Russia’s doorstep, the unilateral U.S. abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty to pursue missile defense humiliated a weakened Russia.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Hillary Clinton gave an eloquent speech calling for Democratic Party unity, but some of her supporters are making clear that they so hate Barack Obama that they would prefer that John McCain extend neoconservative rule in the United States rather than let Obama into the White House.

Some of these die-hard Clinton backers claim they have suffered various slights, such as receiving inferior hotel rooms in Denver or finding the Obama campaign insufficient in its ardor courting their support. Others blame Obama for examples of sexism and unfairness that arose in the long primary campaign.

In Russia even more than in America, “Kosovo” rhymes with “I told you so.”

Many Americans don’t realize that the former Serbian province of Kosovo, which broke away in 1999 after US-led NATO forces bombed Serbia for 78 days, helped set the stage for the recent conflict between Russia and neighboring Georgia.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Facing a new reversal in federal court, the Bush administration is finding its options narrowed in its effort to stop congressional testimony from former White House counsel Harriet Miers and chief of staff Joshua Bolten regarding the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.

The administration had asserted a blanket claim of executive privilege in the face of congressional subpoenas, but U.S. District Judge John Bates rejected that claim as unprecedented and, on Tuesday, denied the Justice Department’s request for a stay pending an appeal.

The lion in winter brought tears to the eyes and a convention to its feet as Ted Kennedy passed the torch to Barack Obama. Michelle Obama brought light to the eyes of Democrats with an all-American story about dreams that do come true.

In judging the shape of a future John McCain presidency, there are already plenty of dots that are easy to connect. They reveal an image of a war-like Empire so full of hubris that it could take the world into a cascade of crises, while extinguishing what is left of the noble American Republic.

McCain has made clear he would continue and even escalate George W. Bush’s open-ended global war on Islamic radicals. McCain buys into the neoconservative vision of expending U.S. treasure and troops to kill as many Muslim militants as possible.